Blizzard has posted update notes for Torghast on the Shadowlands Alpha including a nerf to two torments, allowing the Skeletal Cauldrons to be destroyed, nerfing Skeletal Remains, and more!

Blizzard

Updated May 21

The following class now has Anima Powers and can venture into Torghast:

Death Knight

The following classes have received new Anima Powers:

Demon Hunter

Warlock

Two new cell blocks are now available in Torghast:

Mort’regar

The Upper Reaches

General Gameplay Changes

Death Pools now grow more slowly out of the corpses of the Deadsoul.

Skeletal Cauldrons can now be destroyed by interacting with them.

Skeletal Remains now move 50% slower.

Developers’ note: This should introduce a little more counterplay to these skeletons, especially for melee characters who have had trouble outrunning them.

Brokers on short floors should no longer be in trap distance. Many traps and enemies have been removed from the beginning of floors, where they might reach players in the safe area.Torments

Eye of Skoldus and Fracturing Forces will now wait longer after a player leaves combat before checking to call in ambushers.

Developers’ notes: Over the last week, we’ve read and heard a lot of feedback on this part of Torghast, most of which has been focused on the concept of timers. Please see our recent post on this subject which begins with, “We agree that one of the best things about Torghast is that you can play at your own pace, without feeling rushed. We certainly don’t want to make Torghast into a fast-paced, timed game mode.” We’re working on more changes to Torments and all of Torghast; please stay tuned!

Comments

Comment by AzraelUltima

on 2020-05-22T06:16:37-05:00

Remove Torments.

If somebody wants to wait on cooldowns per pull then let them. Most of us are not insane and just want a good, fun, stress-free experience.

I think people are vastly overestimating how common this behaviour could be if it even occurs at all - most players simply won't have the time to play like that, nevermind any interest in doing so. It would pretty much require being able to pause a run to be a valid tactic for any but the most dedicated players.

Comment by thesliders

on 2020-05-22T06:23:36-05:00

Just remove torments.

Comment by havokbloodcraft

on 2020-05-22T07:11:19-05:00

I think a better option would be to not waste time on torments and instead just create a new account-wide stat like achievement points but more based around the idea of dishonorable kills where people who engaged in degenerate gameplay could be tracked and avoided. If you had a system where one player could examine another player and see if they engage in negative behavior often it would have far more impact than any game mechanic the devs can make. One large problem that came from the sharding and cross-realm play is that toxic players go into a group with people they never have to see again and misbehave without consequence. We get to show off our cool through achievements but we have no system to set it against. I think the old days would have been different if a ninja looter or guild bank thief had a permanent blemish other people could see when inspecting them. I think a better way to target degenerate gameplay is to identify it and ask people not to do it and create a reputation for a negative action and cause it to give feedback and track instances such as +1 degenerate point gained and the player can decide if they want to keep doing it if so then other people can tell how often they do those things and in a grind-heavy game like wow after a while the toxic people would leave or go do things among their own kind.

TLDR I think torments are basically an attempt at a bandage instead of just giving the community the tools to identify negative behaviors and the people who primarily engage in them or make sure that once you identify an instance of abuse you let people know its frowned upon and people might get punished like they would for using a known exploit.

Comment by Babikir

on 2020-05-22T08:19:31-05:00

I think timed content for Torgahst is bad. We have timed content in Mythic + for those that want to push content and push it fast.

My plan A: Remove torments and focus on better class and gameplay. Stop wasting developer time balancing torments, when balancing covenant abilities and soulbinds should be getting more attention.

My Plan B: If Blizz won't listen to the fans and insist we have torments, then a soft time for the torments to begin should be the next option. Whatever the time Blizz wants you to complete a floor in a normal paced way, lets say 20 minutes, is the soft cap. At that soft cap, the torments start. That way players who move at a decent pace are not bothered by it, and those who want to pop lust every pull will.

They, and we, don't need to over complicate matters with systems on systems. Keep it simple.

Comment by Frozenkex

on 2020-05-22T10:57:12-05:00

The only reason people would have to show the behaviour torments are meant to deter would be scoring in a leaderboard. Without a leaderboard, torments are useless. With a leaderboard, you could easily just use said leaderboard to counteract the behaviour without affecting people that just like to take their time and explore.

Leaderboard is pretty useless to encourage playing it at all. There are quite a lot of people who do mythic +15, but i dont think that even 1% of them cares about leaderboards. Vast majority of people who did challenge modes did so for the armor set, not for leaderboards. The whole mode would be useless without reward.

I understand player behaviour. I'm also paying attention to Blizzard's stated design intent. Torments don't work with that, and do not actually fill any purpose with the system as presented.

Rewards are supposed to cap out in an 18 floor run. Torments barely even figure into those, and any geared player won't have a reason to wait for CDs at that point anyway, making them doubly pointless.

This is the problem, you are just working on assumptions. Nowhere did Blizzard say rewards cap out on floor 18 or any "supposed". You dont know the reward structure of the place at all. Torments matter when you start on higher floor WITHOUT anima powers (which is how its going to work), and its important to introduce player to mechanics like that earlier.

I think people are vastly overestimating how common this behaviour could be if it even occurs at all - most players simply won't have the time to play like that, nevermind any interest in doing so. It would pretty much require being able to pause a run to be a valid tactic for any but the most dedicated players.

wrong, history proves otherwise. Players will do whatever is required to be able to get ahead, or they wont do it at all. No one is talking about waiting for anything where you can do it without waiting. People will wait if it allows them to complete content that they cant otherwise, or has too high risk. Which is at higher floors.

And no doubt there will be rewards at those higher floors. Otherwise it will be just a mode you do once a week for your cap, and thats not the design intent.

Comment by serangel

on 2020-05-22T11:23:15-05:00

stop wasting time fixing something that wasn't broken and remove torments and remove the big class abilities from covenants how i need to play in each type of game play should not be my deciding factor on these. these two thing will take down what was looking like a decent pack. dont make what could be a panda land level pack into another bfa cause of these dumb things blizz!

Comment by Wowomegalul

on 2020-05-22T12:16:55-05:00

"At the highest difficulty they can manage, that means waiting for all cooldowns on every pull – unless there’s some reason not to do so. This is our problem: that’s not fun to play, but it’s the right way to play if you want to win."

I have 2 issues with the above:

1) Don't try to unnecessarily dictate what "fun to play" is because it will change from player to player.

2) To counter the point about wanting to win, as far as I'm aware the intention is to cap rewards and that cap should be achievable for casual players, also there aren't any leader-boards.

So players might find waiting for their cooldowns and pushing as far as possible the fun way to play, they get no power advantage by being allowed to play this way. In conclusion I'm still not convinced as to why you won't just let people play the way they want.

Comment by Siscokid

on 2020-05-22T12:32:31-05:00

I feel like Blizz needs to reevaluate what they want out of Torghast. They state that they don't want to rush players in it, but insist that this (torments) must happen... Blizz needs to explain what they want out of Torghast and the torments, because I don't think they're being honest at this point; players are being told and retold some throwaway statements, but then Blizz implements mechanics that are otherwise.

Torments are detrimental to the player by design, since they literally debuff or cause harm to the player. This is based off of time spent in Torghast, in order to avoid the detriments you must spend less time in Torghast. This doesn't let you play at your own pace, you have to play at Torghast's pace.

On the other hand, Blizz's attempts with torments seem like they want to avoid players from being too powerful or to keep them on their toes at all times. This occurs In roguelikes a lot, and some players both like and dislike it. Blizz might be thinking that players will get bored of Torghast if they don't add any form of challenge to it...

So, what do I think is the solution? I don't know. Not to be defeatist, but I think Blizz only listens to themselves at this point, not to either side of this argument. Right now, I just want a honest answer, and I want to see where torments go before deciding to resubscribe for Shadowlands.

Comment by Schattensang

on 2020-05-22T13:20:44-05:00

Easiest way to counter the whole "waiting for x minutes until all CDs are ready"-thingy: Give the highest Cooldowns a "uses per floor" counter. Like Bloodlust only being able to be cast once or twice per floor. And let's be honest, the only point they have against it, is the Bloodlust/Heroism/whatever you want to call it. Waiting for 2 or 3 minute cooldowns isn't that much of an issue. Probably gets annoying anyway.

But let's be totally honest: Only the most insane people would wait ten minutes PER FIGHT anyway. Let's go with 10 fights in one floor, that would be 100 minutes on that floor. Nearly two hours. And now put it up to needing to go 6 floors for the next boss. That would mean 5 floors, with 10 fights, and one bossfight. 51 fights. That's 510 minutes or in short 8.5 HOURS you would take on just 6 floors. You know what else is 8.5 hours? A workday.

So waiting for 10 minutes each fight is just out of the question, unless you make a living out of WoW. And even the most dedicated streamer will have a hard time entertaining the audience when 90% of the time is spend waiting around. So who is left with that tactic: Insane people.

What are my thoughts on Torments? Kinda like them. Some of them need a bit of tweaking, but honestly, most of the time it's a mild inconvenience. The biggest impact will still be what Buffs you get along the way. If you get some insane buffs, you won't feel the Torments anyway. If you get useless crap, the Torments still are the least of your worries.

So far enemies don't scale fast enough to keep up with the anima powers you can get. And that honestly is the hardest part to balance anyway. Good anima powers should feel good, making you decimate your enemies. But in the same way bad luck with anima powers will leave a sour taste in your mouth, if you just can't get anywhere.

Comment by Servasus

on 2020-05-22T14:25:09-05:00

All these people saying remove torments don't even have the alpha. PepeLaugh

I have the alpha, and I have been posting not only in the official alpha forums as well, but also the in game "bug" reports in the game by F6ing every single torment debuff.

Comment by AzraelUltima

on 2020-05-22T17:00:33-05:00

This is the problem, you are just working on assumptions. Nowhere did Blizzard say rewards cap out on floor 18 or any "supposed". You dont know the reward structure of the place at all. Torments matter when you start on higher floor WITHOUT anima powers (which is how its going to work), and its important to introduce player to mechanics like that earlier.

So when you work on assumptions it's a-ok, but people with contrary opinions aren't allowed to? Yeah, sorry, but in that case your opinion is just as worthless. And nobody is going to spend hours on a single run if they could do 2-3 short runs for the same gain in half the time, so that'd be easily solved by adjusting the reward scheme. This is never going to be the highest reward method unless Blizzard massively screws up tuning.

I think people are vastly overestimating how common this behaviour could be if it even occurs at all - most players simply won't have the time to play like that, nevermind any interest in doing so. It would pretty much require being able to pause a run to be a valid tactic for any but the most dedicated players.

wrong, history proves otherwise. Players will do whatever is required to be able to get ahead, or they wont do it at all. No one is talking about waiting for anything where you can do it without waiting. People will wait if it allows them to complete content that they cant otherwise, or has too high risk. Which is at higher floors.

And no doubt there will be rewards at those higher floors. Otherwise it will be just a mode you do once a week for your cap, and thats not the design intent.

History proves that this group of players is vanishingly small. The vast majority won't go out of their comfort zone. Besides, most players wouldn't have the time to pull this kind of stunt off anyway, so the question of whether they would even consider it is moot.

Comment by Menedude

on 2020-05-23T11:01:31-05:00

I vote remove torments too. Just put a set # of uses on bloodlust per level - much easier.

If you want to go do timed content, go do one of the many other available options.

I want this content to not be timed so it'll be something DIFFERENT than M+ and challenge modes and all that other timed stuff.And also so the game can have more content that feels like an RPG rather than an action game.